Motorists ignored screams for help of abducted California woman who was chained and coughing up blood

Sherri Papini was branded with a message, had her hair chopped off and was tortured for days. Police are looking for two women driving an SUV

In this Nov. 10, 2016 file photo, a "missing" sign for Mountain Gate, Calif., resident Sherri Papini, 34, is placed along side Sunrise Drive, near the location where the mom of two is believed to have gone missing while on a afternoon jog on Nov. 2.

SAN FRANCISCO — A California woman abducted while jogging was branded by two female captors who kept their faces covered during the three weeks they held her, a sheriff said Wednesday in seeking the public’s help to solve a crime that has riveted and unnerved the community.

The Spanish-speaking suspects also kept the head of 34-year-old victim Sherri Papini covered at times, limiting her ability to provide descriptions so authorities could draw sketches, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said at a news conference.

The abductors may have been trying to humiliate and wear down Papini by branding her and cutting off her long hair, Bosenko told “Good Morning America.”

“I would think that that was some sort of either an exertion of power and control and/or maybe some type of message,” he said, emphasizing that the brand was a message, not a symbol.

Shasta County Sheriffâs Office/Facebook

At the news conference later in the day, the sheriff said authorities still lack a motive for the abduction.

“We do not know if she was a specific target or if this was a random abduction,” he said.

Bosenko declined comment on where Papini had been branded or where she was held by her captors.

He said he is not sharing all the details of the investigation and asked for the public’s help in finding the two women, saying authorities are trying to do a sketch of the suspects based on Papini’s limited recollections.

Her husband, Keith Papini, told ABC News 20/20 that Papini had her right arm chained to something inside a vehicle with her two abductors.

“She was bound … she had a metal chain around her waist,” he said. “She had a bag over her head…she was chained anytime she was in a vehicle.”

At some point, that chain was cut and Papini was pushed out of the car, her husband said. Papini was left on the side of the road, begging for help from motorists who drove right by her, he said.

“She screamed so much, she’s coughing up blood from the screaming trying to get somebody to stop,” Keith Papini said. “And again just another sign of how my wife is, she’s so wonderful. She’s saying, ‘Well maybe people aren’t stopping because I have a chain that looks like I broke out of prison’ so she tried to tuck in her chain under her clothes.”

Papini told investigators the younger woman had long curly hair, thin eyebrows and a thick accent. The older suspect had straight black hair with some grey and thick eyebrows.

The sheriff warned residents to remain cautious until the suspects are identified.

Andreas Fuhrmann /The Record Searchlight via AP

Papini, the mother of two small children, disappeared while jogging Nov. 2 near her home in Redding, about 140 miles north of Sacramento. She was released near Interstate 5.

Keith Papini has said his wife was covered with bruises and burns and was chained at the waist and wrists when she was found.

In a written statement Tuesday to “Good Morning America,” he also addressed social media chatter doubting his wife’s story of abduction and assault.

“Rumours, assumptions, lies, and hate have been both exhausting and disgusting,” he wrote.

The sheriff has said the case is puzzling for a number of reasons, including motive. He said no ransom demand was made and the Papinis are of modest means.